ABSTRACT

TEMPLES THE FIRST TO BREAK THE STATUTE OF TAIHO.-By the reform ordinance of Taika the whole land was nationalized, all people of the country were subjected to the Imperial House, and a centralized monarchical system was established, superseding the old despotic tribal system. This was, indeed, a great step, and by supplementing and correcting the statute it became an admirable one for all times. But the system contained a few defects which were at first not recognized, but which gradually grew and upset the whole system, just as a little leak will sink a great ship. The defect was this: shrines and temples were endowed with people and lands as permanent possessions. The gift carried with it only the right of taxation, and the temples never had such power over life and property as the feudal lords had later on. However, the power to tax people permanently, through long established custom, placed the temples in the same situation as a lord. All the lands of temples and shrines were untaxable, i.e. they were exempted from any kind of national taxation, thus placing them under special jurisdiction. Not only the land given to temples and shrines by the state, but also the land contributed by the Court in return for prayers for the happiness of forefathers and descendants were made untaxable by the order of the Government. In this way the temples and shrines came into possession of serfs, and extensive lands, and also the right to govern the people and their lands; therefore, politically, they became very influential. Not content with this, they enlarged their lands by reclaiming waste fields and by buying up other fields with their profits. And yet the Government made this land untaxable by tally, in accordance with the request of the temples, without considering how tremendously the influence of the temples was growing. When the temples became very influential, it sometimes happened that those who wanted to be exempt from taxes and from the services of the state gave their land to a temple, thus making it untaxable, and then by private agreement received it back from the temple as a fief. Thus the land policy of nationalization of Taika and Taiho was first broken up by the temples. The condition was accentuated by the fact that some of the Royal Families, Court nobles, and Court ladies of the Fujiwara and others imitated the example shown by the temples; that is, they transmitted their kuden and

shiden by heredity, and thus made them untaxable, calling them shoen or manors. When the manors became independent of the control of the Government of a province, the systems of Taika and Taiho were completely destroyed.